Computer systems are incorporated into an increasing number of facets of a person's daily life. Computer systems are responsible for carrying out ever increasing numbers of tasks for people on a daily basis. In order for computer systems to carry out this growing number of tasks, an increasing number of applications from multiple sources must be incorporated and connections to expansive communication networks must take place. Through network connections as well as from (unintentionally) running inappropriate applications, computer systems are exposed to an increasing number of inappropriate accesses to the systems processes and information. Inappropriate access to processes and information may range from being inconvenient to being of a malicious nature, especially where sensitive data retrieval is the result of such an inappropriate access and transmission back to an inappropriate source is a goal.
Typically, it is difficult for a computer system to detect a condition where an access (i.e., a read access or write access) occurs during an inappropriate period of time, such as when a process involving that resource is underway. A computer system may miss detection of many inappropriate accesses without specific hardware to assist in sensing accesses generally. It would be highly desirable for a computer system to be able to detect access to a critical system resource during processing operations involving the same or related system resources. In addition, it would be highly desirable for a system to be able to detect such an inappropriate access and to determine whether and when to cease processing operations on all related critical system resources.